


tsukki amola

by deanpendragon



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, TADASHI WALKS TSUKKI'S DOG, Winter, tadashi walks dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-10 18:05:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8926891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deanpendragon/pseuds/deanpendragon
Summary: The Tsukishima's dog, Amola, gets two walks per day. After he meets Kei, Tadashi kind of wishes it was two hundred.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> //shoves this at you/// pls take it from me

Tadashi is in a basin.

He feels the grit of caked mud all up and down his side, the back of his neck, blotting the knobs of his spine like some kind of avant-garde human canvas. Dogs have little to no self-control. Tadashi _knows_ this. He can relate.

What Tadashi does _not_ know is that chipmunks stay out and about this late into the winter, skittering all over the place and swishing their speckled tails in what Tadashi’s sure is an _overtly_ taunting manner. Rubber soles are no match for frosty winter sidewalks. Tadashi’s embarrassing lack of upper body strength probably has something to do with it too, but he digresses.

One look into the hallway bathroom with its gorgeous floor-to-ceiling marble and impressive, built-for-four rainfall shower and Tadashi decides _fuck no_. The mud practically leaps from his skin and crawls its grimy way onto the pristine, shiny vanity countertop, and that’s just as he stands in the doorway _._

So, ever-respectful of clients’ homes—especially ones like this—Tadashi opts for the sink in the aptly named mudroom. He climbs into the ginormous sink basin once he’s scrubbed the pigment out of his clothes. The faucet spits water down his back and he rubs his soiled skin with his fingers and contorts under the tap, catlike.

“This is all on you,” he huffs.

Amola blinks at him, black snout on an otherwise tan, sleek body raised high like she’s way too good for him, as is her style. Tadashi glares. The warm water soaks right through the butt of his boxers as he sits pathetically in the sink that, while expansive, is probably not meant for people. That’s what the suspiciously enormous shower down the hall is for.

“Okay, okay. Maybe it’s not _entirely_ your fault,” he admits. “See if I ever swerve for another chipmunk. No, I’m kidding. That’s cruel. This is the first time it’s been a chipmunk instead of a squirrel, you know. I should celebrate.”

Amola blinks at him once more. Find him amusing, she does not. But Tadashi kind of _adores_ her, always preening and delicate and shiny, her tan coat pristine even after their ordeal that’s left Tadashi looking like nature’s own doormat, or maybe that woodsy version of Gandalf from _The Hobbit_.

To demonstrate her finickiness, Amola leans over the grand length of her leg to lick her paw.

“Alomamola,” says Tadashi, scratching the last of the mud from himself.

She ignores him in favor of a pompous sniff.

“Wish I could do that. Just snort at people instead of talking.”

Tadashi turns his body to run his palms under the stream of clear water, turned a dirty copper by the time it spirals over the drain. His attention pulls back to Amola when her tail wags, her mouth dropping open to emit happy pants. Tadashi turns the knobs and they squeak, satisfied.

“What?” he asks. He turns over his bare shoulder.

A guy with glasses stands in the mudroom doorway, phone propped in his hand like he’s torn between taking a picture and calling the police. Tadashi stutters a shocked syllable. Glasses guy just stares in his general direction, eyelids heavy like he is bored with absolutely everything he has ever seen.

An electronic beat from the headphones around his neck fills the short silence.

“Oh my god! I, uh—I walk your dog,” Tadashi struggles, pointing at her over the rim of the sink basin as if there are plethoras of dogs in the immediate area. “She dragged me all through the mud on our walk, see, those are my clothes. But I swear I’m not naked.”

“Oh,” the guys says shortly.

He turns his bored gaze to Amola. She trots over to sit at his feet and looks up at him like  _I have never seen this man before in my life_. Tadashi gawks at her betrayal. He shifts in the sink and blushes furiously at the weird squelching sound of wet fabric unsticking from porcelain.

Glasses guy gives Amola a nice pat on the head and stalks wordlessly from the doorway.

Tadashi calls after him the only thing he can think of.

“Um. I swear I’ll clean the sink!”

Amola regards him from the doorway, disappointed. Tadashi hears the soft slaps of shoes on hard marble. He buries his burning face in his hands but looks up when the tired voice calls back, its melodic drone bounding down the echoic hallway.

“Towels are in the cabinet above the dryer.”

*

When Tadashi tells her, Tsukishima Hoshi laughs for an entire minute. Tadashi counts.

He doesn’t even know why he tells her except for the fact that she detests formalities and is probably one of the coolest women Tadashi’s ever met, sunglasses pushed up into her honey-colored hair despite the pale winter sun falling from the sky at the unreasonable hour of five in the afternoon.

She pulls the silk scarf from her neck and speaks through the tail-end of her laughter, “Tadashi, you should’ve used a shower. We have plenty of them. The basin in the mudroom, my god. That’s—well, that’s impressive, actually.”

“I’m so sorry,” Tadashi replies, cringing.

She cracks the cap off a bottle of water. A drip flies from the top when she plunks it on the counter to sift through her wallet, fingering one bill after another and mouthing their amounts as she goes. She pushes the money into Tadashi’s hand and grins.

“I can’t believe you’ve walked Amola for over a _month_ and have never seen Kei. Jesus, that kid can camouflage. He’s like a starfish. He’s my little star, anyway,” she gushes. “Although not _little_ , I suppose. No idea where he gets that height.” 

Tadashi blushes at the motherly sincerity, absently wondering what his own mother blathers to strangers in his absence. His grades? His mediocre athleticism? His stubborn insistence to keep his hair the very same way it’s been since middle school?

He straightens his bangs and replies, meek, “I didn’t know he was here. If I did, I swear I wouldn’t have—not to say that I normally go around clients’ houses sans seventy-five percent of my clothes—but I just—that’s so _embarrassing_.”

Tsukishima waves a dismissive, bejeweled hand.

“I’ve seen worse. Besides, Kei needs something to break up his days.” She plucks the needless sunglasses from her head, folds them and goes on, “I’ll tell him not to bother you. Although it seems he’s done a superb job until this morning.”

Tadashi pictures a flash of wild blond hair—hears a nice, melodic drone.

“That’s alright,” he insists. “I mean, I don’t mind.”

Lively from her afternoon walk, Amola brushes against him on her way from the kitchen. She leaves fine tan hairs on his pant leg, a parting gift. The sound of her trimmed claws goes from _tick_ to _thunk_  as she abandons the marble for the fine hardwood of the living room. 

Politely, Tadashi pockets the cash.

*

The second time he sees Kei, Tadashi thankfully has clothes on.

An abundance of clothes actually, seeing as he’s in the front hall when Tadashi marches Amola through the door after her morning walk. He doesn’t even notice until he toes off both sneakers and kneels to unhook her purple lead. The frozen metal of the latch bites his fingertips.

“Hey,” says Kei and Tadashi starts.

“Oh! Hi.”

Kei eyes him warily, as if Tadashi wields a meat cleaver instead of a leash. The gold in his stare strikes Tadashi through and he waits for the _ping_ of an arrow into the wooden door at his back. After a moment, Amola nudges his wrist with her cold, wet nose.

“Oh, right,” Tadashi remembers and unhooks her.

She bounds to Kei and sits obediently at his feet.

“Was she okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, mhm,” Tadashi hums, pleased. “She’s the best.”

Tadashi doesn’t get another golden stare, Kei’s attention strictly on Amola.

“I’m Tadashi. Er, Yamaguchi Tadashi.”

Tadashi gives what he hopes is a harmless grin, because he’s not in the place to aim for _charming_ quite yet. He hopes he conveys anything except _I’m a weird nudist who hides in sinks under the guise of walking peoples’ dogs. And how are you this fine morning?_ Apparently he succeeds because Kei looks back at him, fingers pressed into the thick fur of a pleased Amola.

“I know,” he says. “Tsukishima Kei.”

“Good to meet you,” chirps Tadashi and means it.

“Likewise.”

Kei lifts his hand from her and Amola trots away. Tadashi shifts in the lonely moment.

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” says Kei, adopting a killer grin. “I mean, when you’re not hunched over in my laundry room sink.”

Tadashi goes red; chin first before it travels up to sizzle beneath his freckles.

“That was a joke,” Kei clarifies.

“Damn it,” breathes Tadashi. “I almost thought you weren’t gonna mention that.”

“How could I not?”

The question sounds like anything but a question but Tadashi struggles for an answer anyway, mind shrouded in a pretty pink haze as he watches Kei lace up his boots. Leather, Tadashi thinks. He turns like a dope when Kei steps past him to pull open the front door. Winter air swoops into the house on deft wings.

“Later,” Kei drones and shuts the door behind him.

From the depths of the cavernous house, Amola squeaks a rubber toy.

*

“Sit.”

Nothing.

“Shake,” Tadashi tries, holding out his hand.

Nothing.

“Roll over?”

Amola tilts her head and one of her pointed ears caves in on itself.

“Okay,” Tadashi tells her, “that was pretty adorable. Not _quite_ a roll, but a good substitute.”

Sitting belatedly but elegantly, Amola blinks at him like she’s known this all along. Tadashi sighs and leans forward to run a hand down her back. Her fur is still cool from their walk.

Tadashi rubs the chill away and says, “Why do I feel like you absolutely do know how to do these things? And you only refuse because _I’m_ the one asking? I thought we were _friends_ , Alomamola. Friends sit for other friends.”

“You talk to her a lot.”

Tadashi yelps. He shuffles across the living floor and peeks into the kitchen to find Kei, perched precariously on one of the grand bar stools. A sparse china plate balances on his knees. The pair of chopsticks he holds like a conductor’s baton glints in the generous sunlight that falls through the kitchen skylight. 

“It’s a bad habit,” Tadashi answers once he catches his breath.

Kei sets the utensils down with a quiet _clink_. “Oh?”

“It happens when you work with dogs all day, every day."

He stands and places his plate in the stainless steel triple sink.

“It would seem so.”

Natural light hits him in all the right places. Even the white fabric of his shirt glows, each single stitch illuminated. Tadashi distracts himself with Amola’s name tag, smoothing the pad of his thumb over the grooves that constitute _Tsukki Amola_. 

“Do you think it’s weird?” he wonders. “Like when moms talk to their babies at the supermarket?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Tadashi taps his chin in thought.

“But I guess babies are more so _people_ than dogs are,” he assesses.

“Debatable.”

Tadashi chirps a laugh and at the sound of it, Kei glances over.

“She’s playing head games with you,” he mentions. “Amola.”

At her name, Amola’s head shoots up, ears perked.

“Roll over.”

She obeys immediately, fluffy tail swatting Tadashi’s thigh. She keeps her brown eyes planted on Kei as he crosses the room to sit on his knees in front of her. Tadashi quickly eyes the kinks of blond that fall over the shell of his ear.

“Now shake,” Kei orders.

Amola scrambles into a sitting position and holds out her paw. Her pink tongue lolls from the side of her mouth and she looks between the two of them expectantly. She gives a soft, affronted bark.

“That’s yours, Yamaguchi.”

“Oh my god, yes,” rejoices Tadashi and shakes Amola’s giant paw with enthusiasm.

Kei hums approvingly and stands from them like  _my work here is done._ Tadashi half-expects Kei to dismiss him like he’s a failing student kept after hours—Tadashi _had_  already taken Amola on her morning walk, after all, and his following house a couple streets over harbors two mastiffs whose bladders are probably ready to burst—but Kei just nods and stalks down the hall.

“I’ll try not to talk to her so much,” Tadashi tells Kei’s back.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” Kei tells the hallway. “I wear headphones.”

Tadashi beams and shuffles to sit on his knees in front of Amola. He lofts a suspicious eyebrow. 

“You knew he was there the whole time, didn’t you?” he whispers.

Amola blinks. Tadashi squints at her.

“Traitor,” he accuses.

Amola turns from him and scouts the room for a toy. Her purple squeaker cat is on the rug in the library. Her half-frayed, multicolored rope is in the backyard, buried in soft snow. Her knotted chew bone is in the main room upstairs and Tadashi hasn’t seen her durable-fabric bunny rabbit for _days_ now, so he guesses it’s in one of the Tsukishima house’s many closed-off rooms.

Finding nothing, she returns to Tadashi.

“Shake,” he tries.

She grants him a placid stare. Tadashi sighs and scratches her fluffy chest.

“I’ll get you one of these days, Alomamola,” he swears. “If I can get half-blind, half-dumb Bobo the Maltese to sit pretty, lie down _and_ roll over, I can certainly get you to shake. Just because you’re pretty doesn’t mean you don’t have to _listen_.”

That morning, Kei keeps his headphones off until Tadashi leaves. 

*

“Mom.”

_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk._

“Mom,” Kei says again.

_Thunk—_ the chef’s knife thunks hollowly on the wooden cutting board. Kei takes a seat at the counter across from where she stands, chopping through an impressively plain-looking chicken breast. Steam rises from the fresh cuts. Kei rests his elbow on the granite and his chin in his hand.

One more, “Mom.”

“Hey, sweetheart. What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Kei answers.

“Did you get a lot done today? Lots of editing?”

“Not really.”

“That’s great,” she responds distractedly, using the blade of the knife to crowd the slices to the very center of the cutting board. They leave steaming trails of cloudy liquid in their wake. 

“Why are you pretending to cook?”

“Hilarious. But this isn’t for us.”

“Thank god.”

“It’s for Amola.”

“As a punishment?” Kei asks.

“Quite the opposite, actually. Tadashi says it’s good to add extra protein to her diet every once in a while. But _only_ every once in a while.”

Kei follows the single, polished crack in the countertop with his finger; something he’d accomplished when he was little with a blunt hammer he’d acquired from a “kid-friendly” archaeological dig kit. He’d hidden it for weeks only to find out his parents noticed the very first day. They hadn’t minded. They’d said it added _character_.

“I see. Good for her.”

“I _adore_ Tadashi, Kei,” his mom coos. “What do you think of him?”

Kei stares down at the speckled granite.

“He walks our dog,” he answers mildly.

“I’m thinking about asking him to come Wednesdays, too.”

“Makes no difference to me. I’m just working.”

“Oh, I just _adore_ him.”

“I think he’s a little young for you, mom.”

“You’re a trip, Kei. But it’s funny you should mention that, because I’m actually—and you’re gonna love this gossip.” She pauses, leans forward and lofts an impeccable eyebrow at Kei, “I’m actually thinking about introducing him to your cousin. You think he likes blondes? I mean, she’s sweet, he’s sweet—it’s perfect!”

“How simple,” says Kei, once again tracing the crack in the granite.

*

“I feel weird being here while you’re here.”

Tadashi blinks. “Sorry?”

“No, I just mean...I feel like I should be doing that.”

Tadashi grins at the curve of Kei’s shoulders as he hunches over a computer monitor that’s bigger than most televisions. It’s not often that Tadashi visits the upstairs level of the Tsukishima house, only climbing the massive staircase when he chases Amola down for her afternoon walks. He hooks her leash with a sharp _snap_ and smoothes down wayward tufts of fur under her collar.

“People have me do this when they’re home all the time,” he says.

“Is that right?” Kei mumbles.

“Totally. Most of my clients are either busybodies or like, a hundred years old.”

“That’s really old.”

“Really super old,” Tadashi agrees. “I can’t tell you how many old men I’ve walked in on taking a bath.”

“Oh my god,” says Kei.

“Yeah. I, uh—I don’t know why I told you that.”

Kei shrugs, grinning minimally at the computer screen.

“They probably forget approximately three minutes after it happens, anyway.”

Amola starts when Tadashi barks a wicked laugh.

“Holy shit, that’s awful,” he insists.

Kei turns over his shoulder. “Isn’t it?”

*

Bobo the Maltese is half-blind and half-dumb and yet, twice a year for last three painstaking years, he finds a way to escape the confines of his backyard and wander the streets like a peddler. Tadashi is always fraught with concern.

“It’s never happened in the winter!” he tells Amola as he rifles frantically through the basket of dog supplies by the Tsukishima’s front door. “It’s happened once in fall, twice in spring and _three times_ in the summer. I’m thinking maybe the heat makes him stir crazy or something, I don’t know.”

Amola stands idly by and watches him. Tadashi pulls her leash from the bin with unsteady hands and attaches it to her collar, pocketing a second one for Bobo if—no, _when_ —he finds him. He stands and twirls his scarf around his neck. Amola blinks up at him.

“Don’t give me that look! I’m in _crisis mode!_ I don’t even remember where I put my shoes.”

“Your shoes are by the back door,” replies Kei, appearing at the mouth of the hallway.

He holds something that vaguely resembles an old-school turntable in his arms. The thing looks weighed down by time, pulled from Kei’s grip to the hardwood below. He carries it past Tadashi with ease and pauses at a door at the front of the house Tadashi has never seen open. Kei tosses a tired look over his shoulder. Tadashi jolts at the unexpected attention.

“Can you open this for me?” Kei shifts the weight in his arms and adds, “If your _crisis mode_ permits it.”

“I think it does,” Tadashi answers.

He zips over. The door gives a disgruntled creak when he pushes it open.

“An office?” he mutters.

Tsukishima sets the machine on the desk closest to the door and straightens once again, running his palms down each of his sleeves to rid them of dust. Tadashi gapes at the _immense_ computer monitor on the far wall—even bigger than the one upstairs—and the multitudes of electronic hardware adorned with knobs and bright, flashing buttons. Thick cords dart over the lower parts of the walls like blue and red veins.

The world’s most complicated carnival.

“Kind of,” answers Kei, his hand on the shiny gold doorknob.

“So _cool_ ,” Tadashi marvels.

Kei blinks at him and hums a soft, inquisitive sound. Tadashi could curl up in it and fall asleep.

“Cool?” Kei wonders.

Tadashi nods and nods and nods but twirls around when Amola gives a soft, impatient whine. His nerves spike once more, sharper this time; vengeful for being forgotten, if only for a minute.

“My shoes!” he chirps suddenly.

“Back door,” Kei reiterates.

The Tsukishima’s unending marble floors are treacherous for socked feet but Tadashi sprints to retrieve his sneakers anyway, hopping into them on his way back. He slings his dangling scarf tighter around his neck and grabs Amola’s leash up from the floor.

“We’ll be back!” he announces, feeling his coat pockets for the extra leash.

Kei eyes him warily. He presses a single finger to the wood paneling of the front door when Tadashi goes for the handle. Tadashi gets the feeling that the door should be grateful for such an interaction.

“Are you alright?” Kei wonders.

“Loaded question,” pants Tadashi.

The corners of Kei’s lips quirk up; not quite a smile but more the blueprint of one. The leash slides from Tadashi’s hand. He picks it up with haste and wraps it twice around his hand, secure this time.

“I’m fine, it’s fine,” he lies, “it’s just that this dog I walk tunneled his way out of his backyard again and I have to go find him before his owner has an ulcer. He’s practically blind—the dog, not the owner—and he’s small and white, just like the snow—again, the _dog_ , not the owner—and I need to find him before he’s lost forever. Or wanders into a snowbank. Or morphs into an icicle like that guy from _The Shining_.”

Kei lets his hand drop back to his side.

“Oh,” he says.

“Yep,” Tadashi agrees, winded.

He pulls open the front door and frosty air spills into the warm house. Tadashi tries to tug Amola onto the front walk but she won’t budge from the snow-covered porch. She looks between the two of them once, twice, three times. In the doorway, Kei quietly clears his throat.

“Do you need help?”


	2. dos

Kei’s company is like a sedative.

Tadashi drinks it up, dazed, somehow full and starving at the very same time. Frost crunches under his sneakers and Kei’s feather-light steps. Amola prances ahead of them. Tadashi tucks his chin into the wool nest of his scarf when a gust of winter wind whips past.

“Have you guys ever lost Amola?” he asks, voice muffled by thick fabric.

“Once,” answers Kei. “My family left us at a gas station.”

Tadashi furrows his brow. “Us?”

“Amola and I. They drove off thinking we were in the back of the car.”

“Oh my _god_.”

“To answer your next question,” Kei drones, “I have no fucking idea.”

Tadashi coughs an experimental laugh into his mitten and laughs more when Kei doesn’t object, just stares straight ahead and steps carefully over a perfect paw print Amola leaves on the snowy sidewalk.

“What did you _do_?”

Kei shrugs. The poof ball on his hat bobs around when he pulls it further over his ears.

“Just sat on the curb,” he says. “The guy who ran the gas station gave me a free soda.”

“So it was worth it?” asks Tadashi.

“So it was worth it.”

Tadashi hides his grin in his scarf but Kei doesn’t have that luxury, so Tadashi memorizes the soft, easy curve of his mouth, so delicate but such a change from the usual blankness of Kei’s face that Tadashi walks right into Amola when she stops to sniff at a patch of ice on the pavement.

“I would’ve started bawling. Like, immediately.”

Kei glances over, eyes bright with quiet amusement.

“I was fifteen.”

“Yeah, but _still_ ,” says Tadashi.

Amola halts for another moment, sniffs the air and prances on. Kei sneezes, subtle and mousy. Tadashi blesses him and stares at the smooth plane of Kei’s cheek, so much paler than the tip of his nose that's turning an alarming shade of pink.

“Tsukishima, you look like Rudolph.”

Kei looks askance at him.

“Your nose,” Tadashi clarifies, poking at the tip of his own.

“Oh,” says Kei, charmed or bemused.

Tadashi looks forward and follows the _swish_ of Amola’s cottony tail as she trots.

“I’m sorry for dragging you out in the cold,” he says, guilty.

“I don’t think we’ll be out here much longer.”

Tadashi turns. Kei’s stopped a couple feet back, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Tadashi counts the buttons on his peacoat before he responds.

“Huh?”

“You said he was half-blind, correct?”

“Bobo?” Tadashi asks. “Well, yeah.”

“Is that him?” Kei wonders.

He nods solemnly at the front yard of a house that the Tsukishima’s could absolutely _devour_ , despite it being only a few streets away. A snow-covered lump loops around a gnarled tree and bumps blindly into its trunk. Bobo turns his shaggy head their direction when Tadashi lets out a joyful yelp.

He tromps through the snow and scoops Bobo up, snow and all, and cradles him to his chest in a way Tadashi wishes he could do with _every_ dog, regardless of size or temperament. Bobo shivers in his arms. Clumps of ice drop from his fur and sneak their way between Tadashi’s mittens and coat sleeves as he fights his way through the heavy snow, back to the sidewalk.

When he stands in front of Kei again, Tadashi heaves a sigh of relief.

“Holy shit, Tsukishima, thank you _so_ much, you’re the best,” he gushes, “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t—well, but seriously, thanks! Bobo thanks you, too! See?” Tadashi holds the shivering Maltese to his face and lifts his voice an octave. “ _Thank you, Tsukishima! I was so—ooooo cold!”_

Three shades pinker than before, Kei gives Bobo’s tiny head a single pat.

“You are both welcome. But I really did nothing,” he mumbles.

*

Some days, Kei doesn’t leave his room. To Tadashi, these days are the longest.

He doesn’t linger at the Tsukishima house on those days like he usually does, staying only to take Amola on her morning walk, visit his clients nearby and return later on for her second walk in the afternoon. He hooks Amola’s leash onto her collar and stares at the yellow light that spills through the crack beneath the office door. But Amola’s company is certainly enough for him, and Tadashi always gives her an extra treat on days like these to demonstrate this.

One afternoon, Tadashi pauses for a moment before he leaves.

He sets his pitiful gift on the hardwood with a soft _clink_.

*

Kei pushes his glasses into his hair and shoves back from the usually desolate desk, cluttered with rows of scribbly blue sticky notes and sheets of printer paper. He blinks hard in an effort to wash out the white glow of the computer screen. It doesn’t do much, so he presses his fingertips over his eyelids and counts to twenty. The desk chair creaks when he stands.

There’s a brief snort from behind the closed door—Amola presses her snout to the wood and sighs at him like, _I am your dog, and I demand first priority._ Kei sighs back. He crosses the room, pulls open the office door and stares into the darkness of the living room, lit only by the lamplight that spills out from behind him.

At the sight of him, Amola sits dutifully. Kei grins, tired but genuine. He kneels in front of her.

He scratches her chest and her tail wags, whacking against what sits next to her on the floor. Kei squints and takes the items into his hands. Knees cracking quietly, he stands, fondling the nearest wall for the light switch and flipping it on. The living room illuminates at once.

Kei replaces his glasses to scan the note he holds between his thumb and forefinger.

_Thanks for helping me find Bobo,_ it reads. _I hope it’s better than the one from the gas station from when you were fifteen!_

Next to the endearing chicken scratch is a terrible doodle of a reindeer.

Kei steps back to the computer and drops the note amongst the rest of the clutter on the desk. He then reconsiders and picks the note up once more, placing it delicately atop the keyboard. He flips the office light off on his way out.  He rolls the gift between his palms. The aluminum is cool like it had been refrigerated at some point. Hours ago, probably. 

Kei turns when his mother comes through the front door looking busy, her purse in one hand, briefcase in the other. Kei takes the latter from her and sets it on one of the barstools in the kitchen. Amola barks happily at her return.

Kei leaves them to it, heading down the dim hallway toward his bedroom.

“Thanks, Kei,” chirps his mother. “What’ve you got there, sweetheart?”

He cracks open the can and takes a sip.

“Free soda,” he answers.

*

Amola is freakishly strong, but she gives up as soon as tug of war with Tadashi becomes too much of an imposition. Tadashi _knows_ he couldn’t wrestle the rope from her in one thousand years if not for this. He’s convinced she is aware of his lack of upper body strength and low self-esteem and because of these things, lets Tadashi win on purpose. She blinks her huge, bored eyes at him like, _Foolish human._

Tadashi drags the frayed rope in a zigzag across the floor.

“Come on, don’t you want it? What a nice rope! What a colorful rope!” He thumps the toy against the carpet enticingly. “Look at all those colors! I know you can only see two, but they look pretty great, right?”

“Which two?”

Tadashi looks over to the mouth of the hallway where Kei stands, his head tilted. There are no headphones around his neck today.

“Blue and yellow,” Tadashi tells him. “Or, well, it’s really more blue-violet.”

Kei drums his fingers on the side of the coffee mug he holds. “Oh.”

“Could you imagine only being able to see blues and yellows?” Tadashi asks, thumping the frayed rope on the carpet once more. Amola is even less interested than before. She stares at Kei, tail wagging lazily.

“That would make my job kind of difficult.”

Tadashi scratches Amola’s fluffy chest and counts to three, an attempt to appear only mildly curious.

“I’ve kind of been dying to ask,” replies Tadashi, blowing his own cover. “What is your job?”

Kei switches his mug to his other hand.

“Some of my parents’ friends make movies. I help edit them.”

“That’s like…the _coolest_ thing I’ve ever heard,” Tadashi breathes.

Kei’s head tilts further. “You think that?”

“Yes! Do you not?”

Kei carries his mug to the kitchen. He sets it softly in the sink and pads over to the doorway. Staring at him across the living room, Tadashi takes the tag of Amola’s collar between his thumb and forefinger. He spins it once, twice, three times before Kei responds.

“I don’t really think about it.”

“Well, you should. How _cool_.”

When Kei crosses the room and kneels next to him and Amola on the floor, Tadashi’s heart climbs into his throat. 

“Truth be told,” Kei says, resting his hand on Amola’s back, “I’d rather be walking dogs.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’ll forget how to talk to people.”

“Can’t forget what you don’t know.”

Tadashi chirps an honest laugh and shuffles over to pet Amola’s back, too.

A handful of silent seconds later, Tadashi asks, “Hey, Tsukishima. Why does her name tag say _Tsukki_?”

Kei sighs. Tadashi backpedals.

“You don’t have to tell me, obviously, I was just—”

“I used to call myself that when I was little,” Kei sighs again. “Or something.”

“ _Tsukki?”_ Tadashi repeats.

Kei reaches up and adjusts his glasses. The paleness of his hand only emphasizes the pink blush on his cheeks that rises to stir in the tips of his ears, a wild contrast against the yellow of his hair. Tadashi watches, hypnotized by the colors.

“I used to call myself _Dashi,”_ he offers in return.

“That’s not embarrassing.”

“ _Tsukki_ isn’t embarrassing. I like it. _Tsukki,_ ” Tadashi lilts again, rolling the word around in his mouth like a sweet candy.

“If you insist,” says Kei.

“Besides, I’m sure more embarrassing things have happened.”

Kei considers this, mouth in a tight line.

“Not really,” he answers.

“Really?” chirps Tadashi. “Then maybe you can take some of _my_ embarrassing moments off me.”

A quiet grin breaks over Kei’s lips.

“If you insist,” he says again.

Tadashi’s hit with that same calmness as before, engulfed in it like he could curl up and doze off, right in the middle of the Tsukishima’s living room. He wonders how long he would sleep before he woke up and, realizing the time, sprinted down the icy street to his next clients’ house. He would apologize profusely to the pair of mastiffs as he slammed through the front door, still in a languid daze.

“It’s kind of nice talking to people,” he mutters sleepily. “I forget because I’m always talking to dogs. But it’s nice.”

A couple of expressions flicker over Kei’s face before he settles on _stoic_.

“It can be nice,” he agrees.

Amola stands when Kei does. She shakes herself out, dislodging Tadashi’s hand. She then gets down on her front legs, tail spinning in the air like a helicopter and swats at the forgotten rope. Tadashi grins. He takes it up once more.

“Thanks for the soda,” Kei tells him.

Tadashi watches the back of his head as he stalks towards the hallway.

“Did you get my Rudolph doodle?” he calls.

“Yes,” Kei answers with a smirk. “Don’t quit your day job.”

Tadashi laughs, wrestling the frayed rope from a suddenly playful Amola.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, _Tsukki_.”

*

Even if it’s a pain to walk in, the snow crafts beautiful landscapes. Tadashi veers left to pull Amola away from a suspicious lump in the middle of the sidewalk. Ice glitters from the pavement. He watches his step. The sheets of snow in front yards and driveways that have yet to be shoveled sparkle under the pale winter sun like hordes of gems hide beneath them, riches, frozen treasure troves.

“Do you think I’ll get to walk you in the summer?” he wonders.

Maybe this job is a seasonal thing. Maybe, come summer, Kei will have time to walk Amola on his own and Tadashi will have to walk other dogs past the Tsukishima house and try not to stare overtly through its generous bay windows. Maybe he will run into them on one of their walks. Maybe Amola and Tadashi’s clients’ dogs will get along and he and Kei can stand on the sidewalk and talk for a little while.

“I know what you’d do,” he tells Amola. “You’d pretend like you didn’t even know me.”

When her ears perk up, it has nothing to do with Tadashi. The Tsukishima house looms in the distance, finally, and Tadashi puffs a warm breath into his scarf. He can’t feel it on his cheeks, pink and numb from the winter cold. He gains a hop in his step to match Amola’s eager pace.

He pushes the front door open and pockets the silver key. Tadashi gets one foot on the welcome mat and then Amola zooms off into the house, her leash trailing on the floor behind her.

“At least let me unhook you!” he calls.

A sole bark is Amola’s reply. Tadashi sighs.

“Or just run around with your leash on for the rest of your doggy life. Whichever.”

He toes his shoes off and shoves them next to Kei’s boots, turning his attention to the living room. He jolts—there’s an enormous television in the far wall, not on it but _in_ it—in a place where Tadashi has only ever seen bare wall. The television hides beneath a false, sliding piece of wall.

The Tsukishima house is an enigma.

The television plays something colorful, something foreign with quick cuts and subtitles and shouting. Tadashi jolts again when there’s a gasp; Kei sits on the very edge of the couch, elbows on his knees. His hands wring between them. Tadashi tilts his head.

“Tsukki?” 

Kei stares intently at the television.

“Tsukishima?” Tadashi says again, stepping to the side of the couch.

“Oh,” says Kei. His eyes don’t leave the screen. “Yamaguchi.”

“Yeah. Hi.”

“Hey.”

_"Esa es mi hermana...¡y tambien la tuya!”_ insists the television.

Kei presses his fingers over his mouth in shock. Tadashi grins despite himself and shrugs out of his coat, hanging it precariously over the back of the couch. He eyes Kei's abandoned headphones on the side table, cord looped neatly around them. Tadashi shuffles in the spot he stands.

“I’ve been here for twenty minutes,” Kei tells him.

Tadashi shuffles some more. “What are you watching?”

“No idea. My mom had it on when she left. It’s so _terrible_ —I felt compelled to keep watching.”

“Really?” he teases. “Because it kind of looks like you’re having a blast.”

Kei shrugs noncommittally. Tadashi studies the curve of his hunched shoulders.

“See her?” asks Kei, nodding toward the older woman on the screen just before it cuts to a young mustachioed man. “She has two daughters, each of whom are having a torrid affair with a man they’ve just now discovered is their younger brother.”

“Oh, _god._ ”

Kei quirks the corner of his mouth up at Tadashi’s reply.

“I know,” he concurs. “Isn’t that _awful?”_

*

“The nightstand,” Tadashi cries, “look anywhere but the nightstand!”

“Oh, she’ll look in the nightstand.”

“How do you _know_?”

Tadashi cranes his neck to look up at him. Kei shrugs.

The beguiling young woman on the screen opens the drawer of the nightstand. She lets out a piercing shriek and collapses onto the bed, her dark, dark hair fanned expertly across the green silk duvet. Kei and Tadashi groan in unison.

Amola looks up from where she sits on the floor next to Tadashi. Her tail smacks Tadashi’s leg when Kei leans over and pats her head. Her purple leash lies in a coil on the couch beside Kei; Tadashi unhooked it from her when she’d sauntered into the living room to join them somewhere between the end credits of the second episode and the opening theme of the third, a knotted bone the size of Tadashi’s forearm in her jaws.

On the screen, the young mustachioed man awakens in a pile of beer cans. One tumbles from his hand when he stands. He stumbles around the devastated room and Tadashi turns ever so slightly to eye the torn black denim over the knee of Kei’s jeans. He blinks, startled when Kei speaks.

“Worst feeling,” he mumbles.

Tadashi blinks again. “What is?”

“Hangovers.”

“Oh, right. I wouldn’t know.” Tadashi goes on when Kei lofts a blond eyebrow, “My parents are kind of weird about that stuff. They’re old school. Kind of conservative. And since I still live with them,” he trails off.

Kei nods in understanding. Tadashi grins. He rubs his palms, suddenly sweaty, on his knees.

“Not like it makes a huge difference, ‘cause I don’t really like to go out much,” he admits.

“Me either,” says Kei, his golden stare trained on the television.

The phone in Tadashi’s pocket emits a sharp _ting_.

“I have to walk the dog down the street soon,” he informs Kei, but instead of getting up, Tadashi just stifles a yawn and settles into his spot on the floor, apologizing when his shoulder bumps Kei’s leg. “He’s an Akita and he’s kind of mean. His name’s Gizmo.”

“Like from _Gremlins_?” Kei wonders.

“Exactly.”

“Good movie.”

“ _Awesome_ movie,” Tadashi agrees.

“I have it on VHS,” Kei tells him.

He looks down at Tadashi and his grin is almost childlike; flimsy and fleeting like it’s not sure how long to stay before it wears out its welcome. Tadashi’s fingers twitch on his knees. He notes the living room lamplight that glares from the frames of Kei’s glasses.

“ _Seriously_? You _seriously_ , seriously do?”

“I wouldn’t joke about such a grave matter.”

“A grave matter like _Gremlins_?” Tadashi asks, beaming.

“Yes, Yamaguchi. I am very serious about my _Gremlins_.”

“Oh my _god_ , Tsukki. You kill me dead.”

“I’ll feed you to the gremlins,” Kei deadpans.

Tadashi gapes. “You _wouldn’t_.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

The television interjects, " _¡Han pasado veinticinco años!"_

“Wait,” Tadashi says through a yawn and bumps his shoulder into Kei’s knee, this time on purpose. “Are they carnivorous?”

“I can’t disclose that,” quips Kei.

“In that case, I think I need a good re-watch.”

Tadashi’s phone lets out another loud _ting_. He shushes it and scratches behind Amola’s perked ears. Spanish dramatics fling from the television in front of them: a confrontation between the sisters. Tadashi looks up just in time to see a handsome yet scruffy man in a sailor’s uniform slam open the front door and stand there with pride, balled fists on his hips.

“You’re leaving?” Kei asks flatly. “But I’m pretty sure this guy is Isabella’s biological father who was lost at sea. Yamaguchi, she hasn’t seen him in  _twenty-five_ years. You are going to miss how this travesty plays out. And I will not fill you in.”

Tadashi’s face burns as the last vestiges of pale winter sunlight stream into Kei’s blond hair through the nearest window. He idly pushes his fingers through his own scratchy strands of brown. He meets Kei’s teasing with a bright grin.

“I’ve got a little time,” he decides, and settles in once more.  


*

With his head tipped onto Kei’s knee, Tadashi falls asleep.

Kei stays rooted to his spot on the couch. He watches credits slide up the dark television screen but absorbs nothing. Tadashi’s cheek is so warm on his knee through his jeans. Warm and soft. Kei spares the chestnut hair fanned over his thigh a quick glance before he returns his attention to the television, blinking a few times, his eyes sore from their extensive and impromptu Spanish venture.

He lifts his glasses and presses the heels of his palms into his eyelids. He sees stars. Relenting, Kei blinks some more and turns to Amola. She looks at him, then Tadashi, then Kei again. She grants him an unimpressed stare like, _You opportunist_. Kei squints. He lifts a finger to his lips and then points toward the hallway, her eyes trained obediently on his hand the entire time.

Quietly, Amola trots away. Kei lets out a breath.

He replaces his glasses and brings his hands to his lap. Absently, he laces and unlaces his fingers. He gazes around the dim living room, focusing on nothing in particular. He starts at one.

He gets to four hundred and forty-six before Tadashi wakes up.  


*

Kei finds his mother in her office, lit only by a small lamp on the desk. The yellow light doesn’t get far into the impressive room. Shelves of dusty books are steeped in darkness and the wheeled ladder deluged with soft, lazy shadows. Kei hovers just outside the room. He wraps his fingers around the smooth wood of the doorway.

“Mom.”

Her finger swipes across the trackpad, the light blue glow of her laptop screen cast over her scrunched face. 

“Mom,” Kei says again.

She looks over at him, her face easing into a grin.

“Hi, my little star.”

“Mom…”

“Sorry, sorry. What is it?”

Kei pins his stare on the empty vase at the very corner of the desk.

“Have you asked Akara about Yamaguchi yet?”

“Akar- _i,_ honey,” she corrects Kei’s cousin’s name and then squints somewhere over his shoulder like she’s not sure that’s right, either. She shakes her head and answers, “Not yet, sweetheart.”

“Okay.”

The melodic _click-clack_ of keys pervades the office as his mother types. Kei looks everywhere but at her. He totters on the slick hardwood of the hallway on bare feet. When he lingers, his mother turns to him again, reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose.

He drums his fingers on the doorway. “Could you...not do that?”

She turns back to her laptop to hide a grin.

“Okay, sweetheart.”

“Okay,” Kei repeats.

He drums his fingers on the wood once more and continues down the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos yadda yadda yadda i love you and i hope you're having fun reading this~
> 
> big huge MEGA shoutout to my peruvian bestie adriana bc rly, what would i do without you?!


	3. trois

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alomomola is a pokemon, that's why tadashi calls amola 'alomamola' and before you ask, you will have to pry the canon fact that he's a total pokemon nerd from my cold dead hands before i quit lacing my fics with it. happy reading!!

“It’s just unfair,” Tadashi muses, stroking his fingers through short white fur, “because when I see him, I’m only there to walk his dog—Amola, remember? You met her that day you got lost, dummy.”

Bobo the Maltese blinks his beady little eyes. Tadashi sighs.

“I want to talk to him because of other reasons too, you know? But I’m there to walk Amola, not hang out with him and don’t get me wrong, she’s cool. But he’s _cooler_. He’s—well, you saw him.”

Bobo whines when, lost in thought, Tadashi’s fingers still. He apologizes and pets him again, skin especially tan against the blinding white of Bobo’s fur. His owner must have taken him to the groomers. Strange—he usually asks Tadashi to bathe him. Tadashi doesn’t mind. Because he’s so teeny-tiny, Bobo’s baths take no time at all.

“I never get to meet guys like that,” Tadashi sighs.

In his arms, Bobo squirms. Tadashi sets him on his little blue bed by the front door.

“And even if I did,” he goes on, “they wouldn’t be like _that_.”

Bobo yips his agreement. He prances around on his bed to find the just-right place before he curls into the smallest ball and promptly dozes off. Tadashi watches his little black toes twitch. He grins and feels his pocket for his keys, his hand on the doorknob.

“You know,” Tadashi mentions, “you kind of look like a little gremlin.”

*

“I feel guilty.”

“Don’t.”

“It’s my nature, Tsukki.”

“Is that so?”

“I just feel bad. I feel like you guys are paying me for nothing.”

“Whatever. I needed to step away for a second, anyway.”

“See?” Tadashi whines. “You’re not even letting me hold her leash.”

Kei glances over to where Tadashi wrings together the short stems of plum blossoms.

“Didn’t want to interrupt your project.”

“And what a project it is, Tsukki,” he mumbles distractedly and fastens a pliable, wiry stem around another of the same, fingers deftly avoiding delicate pink petals.

They come to a divide in the sidewalk. Amola chooses the left path and Kei and Tadashi follow dutifully, stepping around what looks like the detached head of an unfortunate snowman, complete with a bruised carrot nose, snapped in two. Tadashi frowns.

“Poor guy.”

“The kids in this neighborhood are ruthless,” says Kei. Tadashi pictures the tiny, poshly-dressed perpetrators gathered around the severed, snowy head and Kei goes on, “I’m surprised it’s not mounted on a sharpened stake like some _Lord of the Flies_ bullshit.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” laughs Tadashi, “let’s find a stake.”

Kei shoots him a momentary grin. Preoccupied, Tadashi’s foot collides with packed snow and he plunges forward. Kei throws out his arm and Tadashi clings to it, strong and steady in his desperate grasp. He heaves out a relieved breath. Amola teeters impatiently on the pavement.

“Nice reflexes,” says Kei.

“You too,” breathes Tadashi,detangling himself from Kei’s arm. “I owe you one, Tsukki.”

“Don’t mention it.”

They turn over their shoulders to eye the obstruction: the midsection of the deconstructed snowman. Plopped right on the edge of the sidewalk, the enormous snowball sports a dent from Tadashi’s fervent kick. 

“Of course,” Kei deadpans.

“Wow.”

“We’ve now found two-thirds of him.”

“Is it good luck if we find the third?” asks Tadashi.

“Only one way to find out.”

He laughs and follows Kei’s gaze to their feet. Tadashi’s string of plum blossoms is in two, thrown to the ground in the shuffle. The petals droop on the pavement.

“Your project,” says Kei, frowning.

Tadashi scoops up the half by his feet and Kei does the same, plucking the winter flowers carefully between his fingers. Amola looks between the two of them as Kei places the bruised petals in Tadashi’s offered palm. Cool fingertips graze his calloused skin.

“No gloves?” Kei wonders.

His eyes stay on the petals. His fingers stay, too.

“You either. Forgot mine this morning,” Tadashi confesses.

Though feather-light, the touch of Kei’s fingertips stick in the forefront of Tadashi’s brain, instantly muddled. The sweep of his eyelashes over amber eyes makes sense, though, so Tadashi focuses on this; on their soft flutter and the way they fan over Kei’s pale skin, glazed a smooth porcelain.

A short rasp on the pavement. Kei pivots and lifts his fingers from Tadashi’s palm, letting him breathe again. He raises them to Tadashi’s face. Their eyes meet for a moment before Kei’s golden stare darts away. A moment hangs still in the frigid air, frozen. Tadashi holds his upturned palm steady between them, afraid that if he drops it, Kei will do the same.

Kei’s palm skims his cheek, a faint touch. A soft, stuttered breath. Tadashi lets out a sigh. His fingers curl into his hovering palm the same way Kei curls his on the side of his face. Wide eyes drop to Kei’s mouth, pink and pursed slightly, invitingly, his palm warming his skin.

“Cold,” Kei notes lowly.

“Tsukki?” Tadashi breathes.

Evidence of their words spins through the winter air between them before it wafts away like smoke. Tadashi’s heart beats in the very tip-top of his chest.

It falls back into place when Kei, blinking, lets his hand drop from his face. Kei rubs his thumb idly over the purple material of Amola’s leash in his other hand and turns to face her. She sits patiently on the sidewalk in front of them like, _Don’t stop on my account._ Light on his feet, Tadashi turns too.

“Sorry,” Kei tells him. “That was—sorry.”

“No!” blurts Tadashi. “I mean, it’s okay. Really—”

“We should get back.”

Kei pulls up the collar of his coat to hide a strawberry blush. Amola is all too happy when they start to walk again and Tadashi stays right at Kei’s shoulder. He doesn't bother hiding his bright beam. Their steps are loud on the pavement. Tadashi keeps a vigilant eye out for the third and final piece of their snowy, dismembered friend.

“You can borrow a pair of my gloves for her afternoon walk,” Kei tells him.

Tadashi beams harder.

*  


As it turns out, Kei’s gloves are spectacularly warm. Just not as warm as his hands.

*

The amount Tsukishima Hoshi offers him to stay two unsupervised nights in her modern, exquisite home is far too high. Tadashi tries to bargain with her but she won’t budge, her button nose upturned at his unambitious suggestions.

She crams paper bills into his hand and scoffs, “Sweetheart, please. Get yourself some food, too. We’ll just be out of town for those couple of days, so feel free to stay the night. And Amola’s only got the one medication—the one for her thyroid, poor thing—and you give it to her once in the morning and once at night. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Kei can tell you about house stuff while I’m at work tomorrow. You have my number. And Tadashi,” she adds with a wink, “don’t throw any _parties_.”

“I wouldn’t even if I knew how,” Tadashi assures her.

*

The Tsukishima house is somewhere he certainly does not mind dwelling, even if Kei won’t be in it. Tadashi makes a note to ask him how to reveal the television from behind the living room wall.

“Me! You! Me! You! Me!” Tadashi chants, slapping his knees. “Us! Two days!”

Amola stares placidly. Tadashi points a finger at her.

“And by the time Tsukishima-san and Tsukki get back, I’ll get you to shake.”

She snorts, resting her chin on her giant paws.

“Oh, I will,” he promises. “Just you watch.”

She blinks up at him like, _Who are you again?_

“Amola, shake,” Tadashi tries, holding out his hand.

Amola heaves a sigh like she’s had the longest day in existence, despite the way the oranges and yellows of the sunset are just starting to trickle through panes of glass and pour softly onto the cream walls of the living room. Tadashi shuffles backward on the carpet and lowers himself onto his elbows.

“This is going to be a good bonding experience for us, Alomamola.”

“Glad you’re getting something out of this, Yamaguchi.”

Tadashi looks up to where Kei stands in the doorway to the kitchen, adjusting his sleeve cuff.

“You, uh,” Tadashi struggles. “You’re in a _suit_.”

“Technically it’s a tuxedo.”

“You’re wearing a _bowtie!”_ he regales cheerily.

Amola jumps to her feet and trots over to stand in front of Kei, her tail swooshing. Tadashi follows. Head tilted, he regards the knot of his bowtie, impeccably applied where it sits just below the shadowed dip in Kei’s throat. Tadashi swallows the lump in his own.

“Real or clip-on?”

Kei lifts a hand to touch it softly.

“Real,” he answers, “and I’m offended you even had to ask.”

Suddenly overheating, Tadashi pulls at the hem of his t-shirt. He forgets to laugh.

“Now I feel underdressed,” he jokes.

Kei quirks his lip up, the ghost of a smirk.

“It’s not the least dressed you’ve ever been in my house.”

Tadashi blanches. “I’m going to wipe your memory so you forget that ever happened.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Like in _Eternal Sunshine_ ,” he goes on, “except with less hair colors.”

“Okay,” Kei agrees.

Tadashi eyes the perfect bowtie, wishing it had been tied wrongly so he could reach out and right it.

“Family wedding,” Kei tells him.

“Sounds fun.”

“Try again.”

“Sounds kind of miserable," Tadashi corrects, grinning.

Kei breathes out a laugh. Amola shuffles over to sit on Tadashi’s feet but Tadashi doesn’t notice; he watches Kei’s fingers poke at his bow tie again and remembers how gently they rested upon his cheek, how light, how velvety a single touch can be. 

“My mom is outside waiting. I should go,” Kei says, but makes no move to do so.

“She said you’d tell me the _house stuff_ I need to know _._ ”

He blinks. “You’ve been here a thousand times.”

Tadashi throws his hands up. “Her words."

“She’s weird. Here, uh—just text me,” Kei offers. “If you need to ask anything, I mean.”

“Good idea,” Tadashi replies, breath catching in his throat.

He fishes his phone out of his pocket in an instant, astonished when it doesn’t fly out of his hand and crack on the marble floor. Kei takes it with care. As he types, Tadashi regards the pink hue in the tips of his ears. It complements the soft sherbet orange that flourishes in the room through generous windows. Sparklers sizzle in Tadashi’s chest. He pockets his phone when Kei returns it.

“See you in a few days.”

He steps past him to the front door. Tadashi spins on his heel.

“I’ll text you, Tsukki,” he insists, “if I have any questions!”

Kei shrugs. “Or whatever.”

*

Tadashi climbs the stairs _equipped:_ a bunch of treats in one hand, purple squeaker cat in the other.

It takes one sharp squeak for Amola to spring to life and stomp circles on the carpet of the upper level’s main room, slobbery tongue lolled out of her mouth. Tadashi sets the toy next to him and with another squeak, Amola rushes him. She contemplates his handful of dry treats and sits with elegance like she’s royalty. Warily, she eyes him.

“You don’t have to look so skeptical,” he scoffs. “This is a fair exchange.”

She looks away like, _Doubt it._

One long, shake-less hour later and Tadashi finally deflates. He thinks he saw Amola’s paw twitch, not once but _twice_ , so he figures he’s onto something with this new bribery route. But a twitch does not a shake make. Tadashi vows to keep at it.

He knows he could spend the night in his own bed—his dad could pick him up—but the living room couch is _just_ long enough to accommodate him, and Tadashi takes this as a sign. He’d just have to come back in the morning, anyway. Tadashi does not anticipate it when Amola joins him, circling before she plops down on the far end of the couch, right on top of his feet.

*

Tadashi spends fifteen minutes staring at the blank, cream wall and tossing his phone from hand to hand before he gathers his courage. He vaults from the floor to the couch and lets out a deep breath.  
  
Recipient: Tsukki Kei  
Message content:

 _you’re probably busy with Wedding Stuff but i have an ultra important question, tsukki--how do i make the tv come out of the wall?_  
  
Amola wags her tail in her sleep on the couch cushion next to him. Having already gotten her nightly medicine, three walks and dinner, Tadashi lets her be. He leans over and places the empty carton from his own dinner on the side table, chopsticks clacking against one another.  _Bzzt._  
  
Sender: Tsukki Kei  
Message content:

 _I’m sitting in a small room with a group of thirty year old men and a stripper. The far right of the panel on the wall by the houndstooth armchair. It looks just like a light switch_  
  
Tadashi gets up, crosses the room and flips the switch—a dull _whir_ and then the wall slides away to uncover the television. He watches, mesmerized like a child by a cheap magic trick.  
  
Recipient: Tsukki Kei  
Message content:

_it worked! thanks!!_

  
Recipient: Tsukki Kei  
Message content:

_so you’re having fun?_

  
Sender: Tsukki Kei  
Message content:

_I’m in hell_

Amola's ears twitch when Tadashi chirps a laugh.

Recipient: Tsukki Kei  
Message content:

_at least you can drink!_

  
Sender: Tsukki Kei  
Message content:

_Good point_

  
Sender: Tsukki Kei  
Message content:

_That reminds me. Upstairs kitchen counter_

Tadashi furrows his brow but doesn’t stall, scrambling off the couch once more and heading for the colossal staircase at the center of the house. Amola is on his heels in seconds. She rushes up the stairs ahead of him and waits on the landing. Phone in hand, Tadashi enters the house’s secondary kitchen.

And he laughs. He laughs so hard that Amola ditches him, and then he laughs some more. 

Atop the counter stands a bottle of inky red wine, a note stuck right over the label, something French that Tadashi can’t begin to pronounce. _Yamaguchi—Go nuts,_ it reads. Tadashi peels it off and pockets it.

Propped up against the wine bottle is a VHS tape of _Gremlins_.

*

Recipient: Tsukki Kei  
Message content:

_gremlins, here i come_

  
Recipient: Tsukki Kei  
Message content:

 _i thought we would watch this together, tsukki, if you wanted_  
  
Tadashi holds his breath until— _bzzt._  
  
Sender: Tsukki Kei  
Message content:

_Are you telling me you can’t watch Gremlins twice?_

  
Recipient: Tsukki Kei  
Message content: 

_i think i can do that  
_  

Sender: Tsukki Kei  
Message content: 

_I’m gonna need more than that flimsy affirmation Yamaguchi  
_

  
Recipient: Tsukki Kei

Message content: 

_pinky promise tsukki!! also--french wine?  
_

  
Sender: Tsukki Kei

Message content: 

_Yeah. It pairs perfectly with eighties movies.  
_

  
Recipient: Tsukki Kei

Message content: 

_don’t you mean OUI?_

  
Sender: Tsukki Kei  
Message content:

_Oui. You said you couldn’t drink at home, so_

Tadashi beams and swirls the dark drink in his glass like he’s seen people do in movies. His heart climbs into his throat. He swallows it down. The wine tastes unfamiliar, crisp and heady. It tastes dry and weighted. Tadashi glances at the empty spot next to him on the couch and takes another sip. It tastes like it’s meant to be shared.

*

“You know what’s weird?” his mother asks, rearranging her hands on the steering wheel. “I didn’t hear from Tadashi all weekend.”

“Oh?”

“He has my number. I’m _sure_ I gave it to him.”

Kei mutely watches the road.

“Jealous?” she jests.

His mother reaches across the console to poke him in the side and Kei squirms, shoving himself against the passenger side door in a fruitless effort to evade her.

“I’m going to open this door and roll out onto the highway.”

“Don’t do that. We’re almost home.”

“Finally.”

"You had fun,” she insists.

“In what universe?”

“So dramatic. Maybe I should’ve let you stay home.”

Kei quirks an eyebrow. “You would’ve let me?”

“Sure, sweetie. But your brother would kick your ass.”

“I can take him,” he mumbles.

“I know it was a short trip,” she muses, “but it’ll be nice to be home again.”

Kei rubs the fog from his lenses with the hem of his shirt and watches the blurred cars rush by. Trees dot sheets of snow on either side of the road—blots of green and brown on a blank canvas. They look like freckles.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “It’ll be nice.”

*

The house instantly livens when they arrive, Amola included. Even the sunlight through the kitchen skylight beams brighter, making the granite countertop twinkle. Tsukishima coos at Tadashi and Amola both before she scuttles up the stairs, travel bags in tow. Kei drops his by the front door.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” replies Tadashi, standing blissfully idle.

“That’s weird,” says Kei.

Tadashi steps closer. “What is?”

“You don’t seem hungover.”

Like the countertop, Kei’s golden eyes twinkle. Tadashi huffs a laugh.

“I only had a glass,” he admits. He takes another step and he’s not sure what it is—the sunlight, the proximity, the soft familiarity of his expression—but the moment seems to sparkle. “I think, uh—I think it would taste better with another person.”

Kei grins, soft and slow.

They both jolt at Amola’s sharp bark. She clambers down the stairs, nails clicking and clacking, and zooms directly over to Kei. Her tail swishes fiercely as he greets her with scratches.

“You missed him, huh?” Tadashi asks her.

“How was your self-proclaimed _bonding time_?”

“Oh my god,” Tadashi gasps, shuffling to sit in front of Amola. He holds out his hand, palm facing up. “I can’t believe I almost forgot. Tsukki, watch this. Are you watching, Tsukki?”

Kei stands back. “I’m watching.”

“Amola, shake.”

Amola lifts her paw and places it heavily on Tadashi’s palm.

“ _Yes_ ,” he rejoices. “See, I told you I’d do it. I did it! Alomamola did it, too!”

“Impressive,” says Kei.

“Our bonding time really paid off.”

“It would seem so.”

Kei’s stare won’t settle when Tadashi looks up at him. He trades his weight from foot to foot. Tadashi just waits, watching kinks of blond shift when Kei tilts his head. He pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose with his forefinger.

He lets his arm fall back to his side and mentions, "It was a long drive."

"Yeah?"

Kei shifts again. "Yeah."

"You know," Tadashi mutters, "your house seemed even bigger without you in it, Tsukki. Colder, too."

Tadashi can't stop the red flush on his face. At least it fends off the cold. Kei steps closer, drawn to the warmth.

"Yamaguchi," he asks, "do you want to take a walk?”

“Sure,” Tadashi chirps. “Just let me grab her leash and—”

“No, I meant…just us,” Kei says, twisting his fingers together.

“Just you and me?”

“Yeah.”

Tadashi feels electric.

“Yeah. Yes! I mean, yeah. Totally. Totally, Tsukishima—Tsukki.”

“Okay."

Tadashi’s steps are light for the bubbles in his chest, his head and stomach so pleasantly jumbled. The calmest kind of chaos. He joins Kei at the front door and they shrug into their jackets simultaneously. 

“Gloves?” asks Kei.

“I've got another way to keep our hands warm, Tsukki," Tadashi insists.

Kei turns a grin on him. Tadashi’s heart presses against his ribcage in the same way he presses their palms to one another's, standing still on the Tsukishima house’s front porch. Gracefully, Kei threads their fingers together—a perfect fit. Winter wind tears at their scarves and jackets. Frost crunches beneath their shoes. Snowflakes dance around them as they walk, two faces pink from everything but the cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _i've been dreaming ever since i've seen you,  
>  heaven when you came my [way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWzzbuJJYQc)._
> 
> <3


End file.
